Mubarak wins Egypt vote on low turnout

CAIRO - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak won a fifth six-year term in office with 88.6 per cent of votes cast in the country's first multi-candidate presidential election, the official in charge said.

The turnout was only 23 per cent, Mamdouh Marei, chairman of the Presidential Election Commission, told a news conference.

Rights groups have complained of widespread voting abuses in the elections on Wednesday, in which Mubarak faced nine rivals. Mubarak's victory was widely expected.

Mubarak's main rival, Ayman Nour of the liberal Ghad (Tomorrow) Party, won 7.6 per cent of the vote and Wafd Party candidate Noman Gomaa was third with 2.9 per cent, based on figures read out by Marei.

A big surprise was the low turnout figure. When Mubarak won his fourth six-year term by referendum in 1999, the government said 79 per cent of registered voters took part.

Judges and monitoring groups say the authorities have inflated heavily the turnout figures in past votes and often less than 10 per cent of people really voted.

The 23 per cent turnout figure was roughly in line with the assessments of human rights monitoring groups.

The monitors and opposition said the voting on Wednesday was marred by ballot stuffing, double voting, intimidation, vote buying and abuse of government vehicles, mainly by Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP).

But the abuses would not have affected the overall result, said several monitoring groups, including the independent Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights.

Under the old system, parliament chose Mubarak as the sole presidential candidate and people voted in a yes-no referendum. He decided to change the system after the United States and domestic groups pressed for political change.

- REUTERS